


End of the Line

by ivanolix



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Canon - TV, Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Happy Ending, Hybrids, Out of Body Experiences, Prophecy, Season/Series 04, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-25
Updated: 2009-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hybridity is going to break Sam and put him back together and break him again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of the Line

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for sarahspank , who asked for angsty Sam fic focused on "See you on the other side"...it kind of turned into epic hybrid!Sam and afterlife!Sam exploration.

By the time he sensed her presence, Sam could not focus on Kara the way he had once wanted. His mind had strayed, memories crowding every synapse, drowning out the feel of her hands softly stroking his arm as he spoke to what had once been the Final Five. Only hours before, it would have been his sharpest desire to feel her like that, and look in her eyes and see the fear for him there.

He was lost in a stream of stars, memories of a thousand years in space and beyond, and all slowly dragged away from him by a bullet and a scalpel. He didn’t know what moment he fell into darkness after that; he couldn’t know.

Into the void of unknowing, then, came a sudden rush of understanding. Hybridity, cylon intelligence, organic and mechanical, synaptic connections aided by resin and the power of his mind. His mind, that was still there. For hours, swirling in the chaos of the naked universe, feeling the connection of his lifeless body with the lifeless ship, and somehow finding life in both of them.

While Kara was away, he felt the boundaries of the ship, and then felt his mind-sight dare to glance beyond. The barriers in his mind were torn to shreds, and the universe poured in. He was numb with knowledge, feeling as if humanity and cylonity had protected him from the vastness of this space, and now he had no choice but to be free of them both. Stars and galaxies filled the gaps between time and space, and nebulas and planets barely reached the center of his mind; there was no individual that could hold his attention.

Memories that he had built over his lifespan darted in and among these new sensations, and he saw Earth-that-was, before war blackened its sands. He saw marketplaces, familiar faces, projects, impossibilities, subluminal travel, golden Caprica, pyramid, love, Kara, death, cylons. Yet for a moment their importance was lost.

Just as his mind finally stopped whirling, just as he discovered the way to view the universe with new eyes-that-were-not-eyes, he found solid ground again. He felt the ship, and it was more real than anything but emotion. Inside its protective walls, he felt Kara, felt her light and warmth beyond any other human. She was near, and he could feel a connection that pulled at him, telling him that she was there in spirit as well as body.

But he couldn’t focus on her. The universe still held him in its overwhelming grasp, and in it he saw Kara as more than the woman he knew. Both of them had grown, and he could not return to what they once had. The world they had lived in was crumbling away, and he could see and feel that she would be finding her true one soon. But just as he could not stay in this one, he could not join her when she left. Emotion was still stronger than the vastness of the universe, and he was shattered by seeing what they were once and what they were in that moment. He had lost the gamble.

Still in shards, shreds, he felt Kara’s presence draw close and then pull back. She didn’t know yet; she couldn’t see any of the connections. As if he could see through her eyes, he saw himself in liquid, red lights playing off this small room that explained nothing of how he existed now. His mind put life back into his body again, and he gripped her arm to stop the gun and found words again, spilling forth what he could put into language.

She would not understand. In the breaking of his heart and mind at once, he did not understand either. And he could not try to help her. To counter the emotion that still gripped him, he kept his mind on the ship and the universe, reaching for facts to heal his heart that could no longer be his main focus.

ooo

The past and the present and the future started to mingle as everything grew near, as the connections of the universe started to collide on one point in space, sending him reeling in the power present there.

He heard all the voices clearer now, felt all of them near as if his eyes were open to see. With a thousand routes bringing sensation to his mind, he could still reserve that small portion for them. He was needed by his people, and even in the big picture he wanted that.

In the last battle, he found _her_ , his kin among those that he had helped create, mixture of cylon and human in a way that would not be repeated in the next generation. She had been alive for much longer, had much more time to adjust to seeing the patterns. She had watched cycles come and go, and had forgotten how to tell which was now and which was still to come. But she understood when he pressed the present on her, and somehow they grounded and stopped the weapons’ fire.

The colony was already gone before the nukes were fired, and it was merely the last straw. He lost track of his focus on it when he was called on for something more intimate. His heart wasn’t ready to look back at his old life, and he cried out in pain as murder filled his vision, without the blinders that had made horrors within his power to deal before. In all the vastness of space, there was nothing that hurt more than this, watching Cally’s spirit ripped away from her.

It was all fallen apart before Kara pointed the way. She was already finding her essence when she truly listened to the song. And the connections were forming again, but not around him. The pattern did not hold his connections any more.

He was losing it all, and he could not show the emotion that blended with the never-ending stream of knowledge. His mind was never meant to see and know and believe all this, not when still connected to the heart that remembered his past.

But as they left him with nothing but knowledge, and the walls of the ship that held almost nothing, she came back. She came back to him like so many times before. She almost blinded him with her brightness, spirit shining out through the cracks that so much pain had given her. Kara Thrace. A name that encompassed more than she had ever imagined. Too much for him, and yet he could still yearn.

The connection was brightest with the dogtags that she gave, and her light seemed to shine forth from his side as she settled what they were, once and for all. As she turned away, he saw the path unfold ahead, and saw the glimmer of their connection at the end. His heart broke again and again, and he smiled with a tear coming to his eye.

“See you on the other side,” he said, and in that moment he was completely focused on his body and the words. So simple.

He didn’t feel when the sun swallowed him, separating him from ship, and him from body, and leaving only his naked mind and spirit. Entwined, he seemed to float for a lifetime, grasping for memories and gripping tightly to what held him together.

ooo

In a moment, the world flipped on its head, and he had normal eyes again. Reality struck him hard in the chest as he woke in the afterlife.

Past was past now. The future was unknown once again. And the present wrapped him in its grip and only teased at what would come after. He opened his eyes and saw the solid reality of a life beyond death. It was not like the universe he had seen through Galactica, and likewise his eyes were not the eyes that had watched Earth destroyed by cylons.

Even with a whole body, spirit body, his once again—he felt broken. For a moment he just tried to breathe, as he sat on the edge of a bed, and knew somehow that it was not real and yet more real than his past few weeks. This wasn’t reality; this was post-reality.

His memories started creeping back to the forefront, and he ached for all that he had missed. Alone in a room he dared not leave, even knowing that the rest of the afterlife must wait beyond, he wept for what was lost. For Earth, for John, for Simon and Aaron, for the Sharon called Boomer, for Tory, for all the ones lost along the way that he had already mourned. For they had not made their way to the meeting of all connections. And he wept for himself, for how everything had been ripped away when he was still too overwhelmed to understand.

If this was life after death, he did not feel the joy of it. He had not died when his body was destroyed. He could not comprehend the entirety of the perfection of the universe anymore, even with imperfect understanding. He had no humanity to wrap around himself, no mundane and yet glorious concerns to devote himself to.

Then he looked up, and saw Leoben standing there. The sharpness of his memories and emotions surprised even him, and he rose to his feet with fire in his eyes. But he had seen some of the truth for too long for it not to sink in. “You’re not Leoben,” he said cautiously, as the fire faded.

“I am not what you knew,” said the being that was not Leoben.

A connection tugged at Sam, and he could have sworn that there was a faint glow around the not-Leoben’s edges. He blinked, and maybe he had imagined it. “So this is all that there is?” he asked, feeling that he could ask his questions of this person.

“Sit, Samuel,” said not-Leoben, with a smile that seemed genuine.

Sam gave him a skeptic look, but sat again on the bed. In that moment, time struck him again. How long had he been here?

“After all that you have been through, you are feeling disoriented?” not-Leoben asked, sitting on the other side and facing him.

Sam took a moment to look around this portion of the afterlife before looking back. “It’s not easy to understand.”

“We were astonished at your destiny, all of us,” not-Leoben admitted. “We had not seen it coming, and God had not seen it fit to warn us when it happened. You gave us all an experience, Samuel.”

“All?” Sam asked, eyebrow rising.

“The angels of god, protectors of humanity’s reality,” not-Leoben said with a vague smile. “If you can call what we do protection. I think you would not have agreed once, but now...do you think the same way?”

“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “I’m not sure I know how to find myself again. I’m not sure I want to.”

“You won’t,” not-Leoben said shortly. It was not blunt, though, and his look seemed to infuse calm into the room. “You are not a normal spirit in this place.”

“Post-reality,” Sam said, before he thought about it.

Not-Leoben’s eyebrow also rose at that. “If you say so.”

Sam frowned. “Wait, what do you mean?”

“This is the plane of existence that you have only glimpsed before,” not-Leoben said, this time his smile and tone beckoning. “Samuel Anders, you have been given a gift because of your service. We could hardly condemn you to the fields of spirits who lived lives deserving rewards of merely pleasantness.”

Sam frowned darkly, brow drawing close over his eyes.

“To each his own joy, and you have tasted too much of our world to be denied,” not-Leoben said.

Sam started to worry. “You don’t think you could be a little clearer, do you?” he asked, a biting sardonic side coming out.

“Kara Thrace,” not-Leoben said simply. “We once patrolled the cycles together. She strayed from me in this one, finding more of her destiny in human form.”

A thousand vivid remembrances of Kara started to flood Sam’s mind and he had to breathe in sharply, recalling the feel of her skin, the smell of her hair, even as another recollection was of the otherworldly glow that had separated her from everything.

Not-Leoben was looking at him intensely, watching his reaction. “You knew her once. She found you before all this.”

Sam slowly nodded, as the beginnings of his memory worked their way, less dramatic than all that had followed, but laying out the steps for their journey. Kara Thrace had been in his head, warning him of Earth’s downfall. He had sung for her, and that song had been what guided everything in the end. Somehow she had always been that to him, something beautiful and intense, even when he framed her in terms of humanity.

“She is here again,” Not-Leoben said, after Sam breathed out slowly a minute later.

“And?” Sam asked, feeling his heart start to wear at him.

“And, we are to patrol no longer,” Not-Leoben said with a shrug. It surprised Sam, more than his words. “Her last demand, unconscious though it was, has been granted. She needed a new half. I knew that she would move on to new cycles; I have been waiting for it. And now she has.”

“What does that mean?” Sam demanded, desperate for something that didn’t overwhelm his brain like this.

“You are one of us, now,” Not-Leoben said, and smiled widely. Almost humanly. “Welcome to the fullness of post-reality.”

Even as he found his foundation, Sam’s mind didn’t accept it all in an instant. “I’m an angel?”

Not-Leoben said nothing, just rose to his feet.

“How is that possible?” Sam asked.

“Your spirit always had the potential, we just did not see it until now. We do not know how exactly it was done, but that does not matter. Now you may stand with us in time, and you and Kara Thrace are together again. ‘On the other side’, as you foretold. You learned to see the future remarkably quickly, even given the new eyes you possessed for a short time.”

But while Sam still frowned, not-Leoben turned and walked out of the room, leaving Sam alone again. He looked down at his hands, and he didn’t have to see a glow—he felt it. It was all true. There was not even the illusion of humanity in this afterlife, not for him.

His heart beat fast, and yet his mind calmed. So this was it. This was who he was, and not-Leoben had been right, it would have been condemnation to go back to what he had once known.

He looked up again, and breathed in the air of the afterlife.

“Sam?”

The breath caught in his throat, and his head whipped back to the door. She was back again.

“Kara,” he said, the word coming out more whole than it sounded in his mind.

She was so close that her presence hurt, even from across the room, like it had once felt when Caprica and New Caprica were as much as they could handle. He felt hesitation in accepting it, but looked to her eyes.

“I don’t think I remember everything yet,” she said, with a slight crease in her brow that was just like her in his memories. “But all that I’ve been told...” she let the words fade away, and they didn’t feel quite right.

“It’s true,” Sam said, nodding. It didn’t feel right when he said it either.

Then he truly saw her eyes, and saw that glimmer of memory, human memory.

“Sam,” she said then, and the connection was in her voice.

His heart broke again as he took a few fast steps forward, even as she came towards him, and they seemed to crush together in the center of the room. Her arms pulled him tightly down, his pulling her up as high as he could, burying his face in her neck. She still smelled the same, still felt the same.

“Sam, Sam, _my_ Sam” she breathed out forcefully, gripping him so hard it hurt. “What happened to us?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he murmured against her neck.

“No, but I have to know,” she answered, even as she pressed her face against his shoulder.

Sam squeezed her close to him, spirit and physicality all in one. He breathed out slowly. “We fell apart.” His voice broke on the last word, and he swayed with her in his arms, tears threatening him again, but the tears of joy after pain.

“Right,” she said, trying to sound incredulous, but her laugh sounding like it was masking tears of her own. She pulled back a little and looked up at him, a giddy kind of grin on her face, and the sort of confidence that only full memory could give.

“We are angels, baby,” he said, with a dark chuckle, and stooped down to capture her mouth in a slow, sweet kiss.

Her eyes were damp with emotion, but she grabbed at his head, and her passion was strong again as she kissed back, humming at the back of her throat. With her there, the world rotated a little and its tone changed, becoming something almost familiar again. Not just post-reality, but their post-reality, and it was already gaining its own style.

“Still taste good,” she said, as they paused for breath, face still close to his.

“Always will, now, right?” Sam asked, as he finally understood what not-Leoben had said about halves. They were meant to go in pairs, and Kara was his. She always had been, but now it was more than official.

“You’d better, my hot little angel thing,” she said, head cocking to one side as she seemed to find her center again. “I remember some of these cycles now; if you’re no fun, there may not be any to have.”

Sam grinned, holding her in his arms, and knowing that their connections had met again and for good. “I’m almost ready to find out what this whole cycle thing means for us,” he said, stooping again down to her face.

“On target as always, Sammy,” Kara answered, and barely nuzzled his nose before attacking his mouth in another kiss.

Sam didn’t need to see all the future to know that this was going to end well. Destiny didn’t seem to be cracked up to be much, not on the original side of things. But on the other side? Everything turned out just the way it should be.

He and Kara would be side by side forever.


End file.
